Ladoga. Balaam Bashny.Net

Ladoga lake we passed the night in a dream, so to speak. And do not swing as threatened or experienced, at all.

And in the morning, by the way, soon, coming on deck, the feeling that ... not a lake. Sea.
It was overcast and not too hot. What to do - not the Caribbean. But! It was the only overcast day for all swimming.

After some time, the stripes on the horizon turned into islands. In three of the island caretaker. Rye. Oat. Nikon.

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The shores of Balaam ...
"... Area 50 islands is 36 square kilometers. Striking nature like Valaam, according hydrograph AP Andreev, "can not be found anywhere else in Europe, a lot of completely cliffs coming in height and the depth - islets, capes, bays ...

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Straits between lakes with dense vegetation and sullen granite rocks reflect on all subjects lazuli and slender pine forest complements the overall picture, giving the whole a wonderful, amazing view. " The name "Balaam" is translated from Finnish as "high ground" is less likely translation - "the land of the oath" or "land of light". Some believe that the name comes from the name of the pagan god Baal (sometimes identified with the Slavic Veles) or biblical prophet Balaam .... »

Balaam ... approach. Ships now moored in the Great Nikon harbor. At Resurrection Skete. Oh, those photos that without the logo, they are not mine. So - no claim.

Here it is ... The Resurrection Skete.

Marina. Home. In Nikon harbor.

Ships coming to the pier, people landed on the island and waste. On the raid, so to speak. There are, and until the people on the boat again to load the time comes.

This is a map of Balaam for orientation

Our boat on Valaam was only one day.
The day began with a walking tour. Route just something about seven kilometers. But in view of the fact that, up and down ... in one word seemed that long .... I especially will not apply - anyone interested, the easy pick up in the search engine Balaam and read ....
This Resurrection Skete.
"... Skeet is located on the site where according to legend, St. Valaam. Apostle Andrew erected a stone cross. Subsequently, there was a chapel in the name of St. Andrew resumed in 1846. In the beginning of XIX century. in a cave, where they lived snakes labored Hieromonk Nikon (1745 (6) -1822), after whom were named Big and Little Bay Nikon .... »

Gilded dome of the church of the Resurrection, as before, served as a reference point for ships arriving to Balaam. Nikon's Bay - one of the best marinas on Lake Ladoga - now the main harbor of Balaam.

All heating furnace on the island, but for other purposes - mainly firewood. These are stacked woodpile. And beautiful, and convenient to store and rains uneasy. Always dry.

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Winters then, you know, in those places is not very affectionate.

All materials needed for construction, well, almost everything is produced on the island. Every thousandth brick on Valaam branded

Home monastic way. Goes through the whole island. Beauty around the extraordinary. This man-made road. All handles are made.

Securely and paved the way, the road is flat and quality. What means - manual labor and, of course, leaving the place to be. Look what purity. Tolley people all the papers on the ground do not throw toli clean and look. Riddle.

Earth i.e. in understanding the middle band, the deep layer of the island, as such, no. And the pillars put on the ground. A fix them here so.

Here on these stones that road paved. And these stones dragged and stacked manually. Work, of course, hellish.
But with the help of God and prayer, the monks do it all.
Voluntarily. Without any compulsion, and even more so without the aid of prisoners.

Mostly there is a feeling that the road is cut off ... just in the woods.

Gethsemane Skete.

Ladoga lake and a small Nikon connects duct, called Kidron.

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"... The unit of Gethsemane Skete, on a plan of Abbot Mauritius, completing the creation of Valaam" Russian Jerusalem. " Father Mauritius completed the construction of the New Jerusalem monastery on Mount Zion. From left him - the 30-meter Mount of Olives, which adorns the top of the five-domed chapel in Russian style. It was consecrated in 1912 in the name of the Ascension of the Lord, it is done on the Mount of Olives .... »

Force of nature is astounding. That's the way trees grow on Valaam ....

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Species from Mount Olivet.

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Monastic fisheries. Here diluted (and now bred again) fish (char, whitefish) of fertilized eggs produced in the monastery in clay boxes. The monks believed that everything,
they take from the lake - he must return. And divorce fry - let them into the lake.

A road ... there is marked sidelines. The tour guides are kindly asked not to go off the road and not wander over the curb. A lot of people visit now Balaam. Here and there were already Serious concerns that elementary vytopchut and grass. ...

Beauty, sorry for the repetition, unusual. Igumen lake.

Boards did not just lie. It seems there marshy shore, but still - in our group there were some people who wanted to come to the water to touch. Not overcome the temptation.

Sun on this day peeped rare. But the case. Let sparingly, but ....

The road turns into a cascade of bridges with boardwalk.

That's how it looks from the outside.

Aborigines. Scratching in the hope (and not at all in vain) to treat.

Since 1827, seven years on the shore of the lake in a wooden Igumen cell labored future abbot of Damascus. Now only the biggest Valaam larch (height of 32 m diameter girth 1 m), but the foundation reminiscent of the Desert.
In 1870 the abbot of Damascus on the site of the former planned to arrange their privacy in the name of the monastery Konevets (Akafistnoy) icons.

She was blessed in 1393 on Mount Athos Prep. Arseny on base in the northern reaches of Russia in the name of the Monastery of the Holy Virgin. A special feature icons are two pigeon chicks, which holds the Divine Infant - cleansing sacrifice for the male child. Ven. Arseny Konevsky founded a monastery from which the icon received its name. She is particularly revered in St.- Petersburg, Novgorod, Ladoga area. Since 1956, the miraculous image of the cathedral is in the New Valaam monastery. A former monastery in the copy of the icon is lost.
The project is a wooden church on the rocky promontory between the lakes and the abbot was Mustajarvi E I. Karpov. Modest single-domed church with a bell tower over the porch, the smallest on Valaam, stood next to the two huts, monastic cells. The holidays come to a close serve Porfirevskogo Islands abbot Theodore, who lived on it in the privacy of 15 years. On the neighboring islands on Porfirevsky he took the land wore to 150 buckets of water for watering divorced his garden, and the rest of the time praised God in the chapel in the name of Ven. Seraphim of Sarov. On the service of. Fedor and about. Nicholas Skete Konevsky wrote BK Zaitsev. In the mid-1950s the monastery buildings were dismantled Konevsky to foundations. The church was moved to the Central Estate and under the stern cuisine adapted to the pigsty. Later desecration was almost completely destroyed by fire.
But ... restored.

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The road continues.

Lonely birch in a pine forest on the edge of Brick field.

And this farm.

"... When about. Jonathan became abbot, then, in 1882, six kilometers to the west of the monastery built a model mechanized farm with 70 head of cattle. Barn was built with separate sections for each animal, based on topography, facilitating entry into the hayloft. By extensive glaciers with lakeside rail track length was 32 m. From the crane. With his help dairy immersed in a boat and taken to the monastery. Delivered on rails and welded boilers feed water was taken from the water .... »

The opposite bank of the Little Nikon's Bay. PoklonnyyKrest at the foot of Mount Olivet.
Once there was a marina.

Well, here's a walk over. We returned again to the shore of the bay of Nikon.

And then went to the main house of the monastery. Also swim.

In general, the landscapes are the same ... the stones and trees. The trees on the rocks.

PoklonnyyKrest Island Baptist.

"... All sailing in Monastery Bay meets away from Ladoga prominent church of St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of floating and traveling, which is sanctified by the prayers of the water element.
The church was built in 1833 zeal merchant Nicholas Solodovnikova from St. Petersburg. Alexandre Dumas visited Valaam in 1858, wrote that "the church - a real treasure, both on artistic merit, and on his wealth - creating a better architect of Russia." The author of the project - AM Gornostaev (1808-1862), one of the founders of Russian architecture. Along with KA Ton, the builder of the temple of Christ the Savior in Moscow, he sought to revive the lost since the time of the reforms of Peter 1 national architectural tradition, focusing on the architecture of ancient Russia. Prototypes were Nicholas Church Moscow churches of the XVI century .... "And for him already seen Savior Transfiguration Cathedral.

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PoklonnyyKrest Monastery Bay at the mouth.

Monastery Bay

Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral.

Navigation (?) Service.

"... On the rocky shore Monastery Bay, under Mount Tabor, on which the monastery is POKROVSKAYA a chapel (built in the 1820s, in the 80s. XX century. Lost and newly restored). According to legend, in ancient times, the holy relics of St. Sergius and Herman of Valaam with four exported in Novgorod at the risk of the Swedish invasion. The last time they were returned to Valaam in 1180 (according to the monastic tradition. Valaam Monastery was founded in the X century). Intercession chapel is a monument to the attainment of the holy relics of St. Sergius and Herman and final deliverance from the Swedish invasions of the monastery, and the rock on which stands the chapel - a legendary place where the ship was approaching, deliver to the main monastery of Valaam relic .... »

Pier in the Monastery Bay. White Chapel - a chapel of the Annunciation. One of the oldest buildings of Balaam (the end of XVIII century)

On the pier is a chapel in the name of Mother of God "All the Afflicted" (1896), built of brick monastery production. It was built in memory of the visit of Balaam Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, who participated as a tab in the cathedral, and in the light of churches - the bottom, in the name of Sergius and Herman and the top, in the name of the Transfiguration.

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Konyushenny the Coach House. These buildings are among the oldest stone buildings on Valaam, erected in the late XVIII century. Previously, the pilgrims arrived at the marina in the Valaam Monastery Bay. And here from the carriage house on the carriages, carts or sledges, who had sent on the island.

Road signs - this is not irony. Even the traffic police car saw. Chesslovo. Just did not have time to photograph. Very quickly left the guys from the marina.

Sad.
Gave excellent yields gardens (over 600 trees). Codling divorce is not less than 60 varieties, harvest up to 50 tons. By lunchtime, the brothers were fed up to 80 kg of freshly picked berries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries. In greenhouses ripened fruit weighing about 8 kg, melons - 3 kg pumpkin - about 33 kg.

Some years the monks were laid on the bank layer by layer twigs and rags.
Pressed against the stones. Was allowed to settle and harden, and then
collected on the island, in the lowlands, and the earth was filled from the top. So
created a fertile layer. And then lit garden. And even seedlings supplied all
North West.
"... The thickness of the soil layer on Valaam is only 10 cm, but the monks in the 14th century tried to grow fruit here. For hundreds of years they were taken here in the land of the boats, fertilized plantations, and in 1824 a monk Paisius grown on the island of 20 varieties of apples, pears, plums and even watermelons, what Balaam received an honorary diploma of the Paris agricultural show .... »

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"... From the pier to the central avenue of century manor is larch and granite staircase of 62 steps. Not far from the gates of the monastery of Saints is the majestic chapel - the Sign. It was built in the name of Mother of God "The Omen". I'm trying to learn to identify the icons where what Our Lady, so here goes: at the Sign of Our Lady of the baby in the womb, it is a prophecy of the birth of the Saviour. The icon (not just this, and Znamenskaia general) interesting story: the patriarch Constantine gave this icon Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, the future Russian tsar and one of the founders of the Romanov dynasty. Since then, the icon becomes the home of all kinds of icon .... »

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Opposite the Sign of the chapel - a stone stele with the names of royal personages who visited the monastery. The stele is made of the local gabbro-diabase, this stone is the island itself.

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Saviour - Transfiguration Cathedral

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Certificate of employment brethren.

The old cemetery there is such a mark graves.
By tradition Swedes floated "fight" Russ, crashed into Lake Ladoga, and the waves on the shore of Balaam was thrown out the man who was here this same king. A recovering, King imbued, was tonsured and spent the rest of life on Valaam.

The house, which was allowed to build an architect who supervises the restoration of the monastery. So we, at least, told local people.

That such vehicles.

To the island there is a post office

Dairy shop.

And, of course ... but without them? It's in the dairy shop.

Ownership boundaries - neobsuzhdaemaya thing. Though, of course, and ....

And so ... not to just hand reached. What is really there.

There is also a school and a dispensary. The island of monks lives quite apart from a small number of people. Secular. This is the descendants of those who lived here after the war. The authorities have moved to the island of disabled people - soldiers. But not quite abandoned them to their fate. Was a medical staff, relatives come (mostly women) who sought their relatives. Formed (and what to do - life is life) family. Children were born.
Of course, now people live hard, almost in the same corridor with the monks, but to leave the island, a little wanting.